The place to be in KC tonight is the City Market, as long as you aren’t afraid of a little rain. Don’t worry, you won’t melt. My boys O.A.R. will make it all worth it. Who am I kidding? Almost everyone who reads this that lives in KC is going to the show anyway. I’ll see you all tonight!

Don’t forget, we are having a little gathering before the show at our house. Stop by anytime after five. We’ll probably be there until around seven. If you need directions just let me know.

Hopefully the weather will cooperate. We don’t need anything like this happening.

For those of you who wanted some new tunes, here is your chance. I finally got around to cutting up the recording I made of MER‘s performance at Pig-Fest. Unfortunately it’s only the second set since I forgot to get setup before he started playing, but it does include the sing-along classic Friends In Low Places as performed by all of Pig-Fest. There are loads of good cover songs in this set and a few really good original MER songs.

I’ve uploaded the performance to archive.org where you can download the whole concert or if you prefer single files. Better yet, you can stream the entire performance using the flash interface. After clicking the link above you should see a media player in the top right corner (you must have flash installed). Just click on the first track and enjoy. I have become addicted to the streaming player while at work. I have even been going back to past recordings that I’ve uploaded to be sure that they are streaming. Be sure to look around the Live Music Archive. There are over 37,000 different recordings uploaded there.

MER
07.08.2006
Pig-Fest XIII
Loveland, OH

Taper: Ed Paff (edpaff_jr@oarsa.org)
Source: SP-CMC-4 Cardiods -> SP-SPSB-1 @ 69Hz -> Creative Nomad Jukebox 3

Conversion: Ed Paff (edpaff_jr@oarsa.org)
Equipment: Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 -> USB -> Audacity

———————————————————————
Disc 1: 43:51

01: Introduction 00:20
02: All I Want 04:12
03: Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You (Frankie Valli) 03:20
04: Moondance (Van Morrison) 05:06
05: Tina Lynn 04:37
06: Rocket Man (Elton John) 04:17
07: Home <-> No Woman No Cry / Three Little Birds (Bob Marley) 07:36
08: Solid Love -> 05:10
09: Angel (Shaggy) -> The Joker (Steve Miller) 04:22
10: Champagne Supernova -> Wonderwall (Oasis) 04:47

Disc 2: 41:19

01: Introduction 01:08
02: Thank You Tease (Led Zeppelin) 00:58
03: Nice And Slow (Usher) -> 01:23
04: Seven Days (Craig David) 03:34
05: In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel) 07:47
06: Kiss (Prince) 05:47
07: Here Comes The Rain Again (Eurythmics) 04:44
08: Every Rose Has It’s Thorn (Poison) 05:05
09: Revealed 06:04
10: Friends In Low Places (Garth Brooks) * 04:45
———————————————————————

Notes:
MER played an earlier set that was not recorded. There was also another
partial track at the end of this set, but it was left off as it was incomplete.
* Unplugged with all of Pig-Fest. Volume was increased (normalized).

Compiled by Ed Paff on 07.20.2006

Last Friday night I finally saw Rusted Root for the first time. I’ve been a fan of theirs since high school at which time I would listen to the “When I Woke” CD before almost every hockey game. The mix of intense percussion songs and laid back acoustic songs was the perfect mix for my pre-game warm-up. Kim has also been a fan of the band since around the same time as well, so it was a no-brainer when making the decision to go.

Unfortunately the show was at the Beaumont Club, my least favorite venue in all of KC. Luckily Zox, a band from the east coast that I’ve seen a few times before, was opening the show adding even more reasons to go.

The show was awesome and the crowd at the Beaumont was not too big, which made the show even more enjoyable. Zox played very well and I was pumped to finally take Kim to her first show of theirs. She loves the studio CDs and enjoyed their show just as much. After the Zox set, Rusted Root took the stage playing three songs off of the previously mentioned CD. They followed it up with a song I wasn’t too familiar with but then immediately after that played their biggest hit to date, “Send Me On My Way.” All in all they played every song I wanted to hear and spaced them between the lesser known songs (at least for me). It was a perfect night of music. I’m not sure why it took me so long to see these guys, but it won’t take me as long to see them again, that’s for sure.

A big thanks to my friends who went to Bonnaroo this year and encouraged me to go to this show after seeing Rusted Root perform a set of almost all older songs at the festival.

Update: My recording of Rusted Root can be found here.

I’m sure the lack of posting last Friday went mostly unnoticed. Everyone was either busy preparing for this year’s Pig-Fest or on their way to Cincinnati for the party. After flying into Cincinnati late Friday afternoon I met up with others who had made the trek as well. We started off at Christie’s and after a dozen or so pitchers headed down to the Mad Frog to see Mike Perkins play. A couple notes from the night:

• I miss pitchers of beer, especially when they are only $5.50.
• Potbelly needs to open a store in Kansas City.
• Papa Dino’s is only good after a few beers, luckily they are open until 3AM.
• Recording a show at the Mad Frog can be impossible at times.

Saturday was obviously dedicated to Pig-Fest The 13th! As always it was an incredible party even though the cops really tried to ruin it this time. It would be impossible to document the events of the party so I won’t even try. Thanks to everyone who came out and partied with us. We’ll have to be sure to do it again!

I was in beautiful Cleveland, Ohio all weekend long for one of my favorite weekends of the summer. As with any other year I met up with friends from all over the country and listened to some great music from many different bands. In addition to that I also attended a Reds and Indians game. The Reds won but we probably saw less than one full inning of the game. Instead we gathered our group together in the outfield bar to catch up and wait for more of our friends to show up. At least I only paid $5 to get into the game.

We also partied at the coolest dive bar two nights in a row. It’s pretty hard to beat $2 beers and karaoke every night of the week. I don’t think the staff of this place had ever seen their bar so crowded. When we left on Saturday night one of the ladies was giving us hugs and thanking us for coming back.

We talked about going to a “beach” on Lake Erie but instead we were treated to a party at the townhouse of Jay and Suellen. The food was delicious and so were the drinks. A huge thanks goes out to them for all of their hospitality over the weekend.

Luckily we had tons of fun all weekend because the airport was not fun yesterday, and I only experienced half of what some of my friends went through. Storms all over the east coast cancelled many flights and delayed flights throughout the country. I should have landed in Kansas City before 10PM but didn’t get there until around midnight. At least I made it home though, some were forced to stay in Cleveland for another night last night. I wonder if they went back to that bar for a third round.

I’ve got four words for you, well actually three words and one made up word: Feeling Better Than Everfine! Have a good weekend everyone.

I finally sorted through my pictures from Wakarusa and put them up on the site. There are some good ones of Virginia Coalition and some other various shots from the weekend. Honestly I should have taken better advantage of the press pass I had to get some killer pictures but often I was too busy drinking the free beer. A better camera probably would have helped as well. I think that’s the second time I’ve used that excuse though. Anyway, check them out here if you have the time. I also added the full list of bands that I saw to my show database.

Speaking of pictures…

I’m back at work, still a little tired but clean shaven and no longer covered in dirt. Overall Wakarusa was a great time and I wouldn’t complain if I was still there. Things were not so great when we approached the festival. We avoided lines at the police checkpoint because my buddy Steve had a K-Tag, but that’s where our luck ran out. We than sat in the car for about an hour and a half waiting to get through the festival gates. It got even worse when we arrived at will call to find another line of people waiting for their tickets. We waited for another hour or so but it was all worth it when we were given our press passes for the weekend! Our friends from Virginia Coalition hooked us up with guest-list spots to the festival which resulted in our press passes.

Unfortunately all of this waiting forced us to miss VACO’s first set, but we were able to see them the next day for what they said was a better set anyway. We also missed Will Hoge’s set, which is probably my biggest disappointment of the weekend. Anyway, we arrived at our campsite sometime between four and five hours after leaving Kansas City. From there we spent some time sweating while setting up camp. Later in the night we enjoyed sets from 56 Hope Road and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, among others. We quickly realized that our press passes were not only good for prime viewing access in the VIP areas but also allowed us to enjoy some drinks for free.

We hung around the campsite for a few hours early on Friday and later caught up with Virginia Coalition as I mentioned before. I think the couple hundred people under the tent would agree with me when I say that their set sounded great! They took advantage of playing in-front of a jam band crowd by doing more improvising than I had seen from them before. Other highlights from the day included Jake Shimabukuro, a solo acoustic performance by Michael Franti and of course Robert Randolph and the Family Band.

Saturday morning again came earlier than I would have liked. It’s hard to sleep in your tent when it turns into a sauna once the sun rises. We spent some time swimming in the lake in an attempt to avoid the inescapable heat. It definitely helped but eventually it was time to get back to the music. I was especially impressed by both Assembly of Dust and Tea Leaf Green. It’s also nice to be able to say that I have seen The Flaming Lips and their incredibly interesting stage show.

After waking up various times throughout Saturday night’s storm, I finally popped out of the tent to see my recently purchased canopy broken into pieces on the ground. I guess a $20 purchase is too good to be true. The nice thing was that the storms actually cooled everything off, at least long enough for us to pack up the car. We decided to go ahead and get it all done before it got hot again, and I’m glad that we did. Just an hour or so later we were once again sweating while enjoying bands like ALO and MOFRO not to mention another solo performance, this time from Bela Fleck!

As I said before, the festival was an awesome event that I believe was even better than last year. Many people were/are complaining about the increase in security throughout the weekend, but that never affected me personally. I do think that the “shakedown street” from last years festival was much better, but that could be just my late night cravings for grilled cheese talking. The food from Ahli Baba’s Kabob Shop out of Burlington, VT did a good job at making up for it though. Now that I have a small taste of the VIP experience, I’m pretty much convinced that is the way to go. Sure the ticket price is expensive, but it includes the prime viewing spots, unlimited drinks including New Belgium beer, and to top it all off you get catered meals. Basically it allows you to experience the best of the festival with having even less things to worry about. Perhaps next year…

In about an hour my work week will be over. I’m going to spend the next four days or so as a hippie at Wakarusa. It looks like the weather is going to be dry and hot for the weekend but at least it shouldn’t rain. There are tons of good bands playing throughout the weekend, so come on out if you want. Day passes can be bought for $50 and that allows you to camp for that night. I’m heading out to the park today and will have a camping area all setup. It’s gonna be a blast!

Last night we had the pleasure of taking Phil to his first DMB show. His life is now complete. I think that overall he enjoyed the show. In fact I recall him saying that the show was probably in his top three of all time. Of course this is coming from a man who’s last show out at Verizon was The Outfield.

For me the show started off to rocking with a song (JTR) that I haven’t heard live in nearly six years. There were lots of highlights including Dancing Nancies -> Warehouse, Raven (another song I haven’t heard in years) and Smooth Rider, among others. I was a little worried about the weather since it rained on my entire drive home, but it cleared up just in time for us to tailgate for an hour or so and then head in for the show.

I would probably give the show an 8.5 mainly because the encore was a little weak. I did love the solo acoustic performance of the new song Sister though. Still it was an amazing first show for Phil and Kim actually said at the end of the night that she is getting more and more into DMB. I’m glad she is because we still have three more shows to go to toward the end of the tour!

Setlist